COPS Hiring Program (CHP)—How Decisions were 

Made to Allocate the $119 Million When More than 

$402 Million was Requested

The CHP solicitation opened on April 25, 2016, and applications were required to be submitted by June 

23, 2016. 

Ultimately, the COPS Office received applications from 1,181 law enforcement agencies requesting 

3,319 officer positions for more than $402,471,327 in federal funding.

The COPS Office focused on several priority areas for 

additional consideration

Building Trust

Applicants who chose “Building Trust” as their focus area in their 2016 CHP application received 

additional consideration for funding. “Building Trust” includes issues surrounding fairness and 

impartiality, transparency, respect, and other trust-related topics. In FY 2016, 92 funded agencies 

selected “Building Trust” as their jurisdiction’s focus area, committing to hire 497 officers.

Homeland Security

Applicants who chose “Homeland Security” as their problem area in their 2016 CHP application also 

received additional consideration for funding. “Homeland Security” issues include protecting critical 

infrastructures, information/intelligence concerns, and other homeland security problems. In FY 2016, 

three funded agencies selected “Homeland Security” as their jurisdiction’s problem area, committing to 

hire 28 officers to address these problems. 

Homicide and Gun Violence

The COPS Office supports the Attorney General’s priority goal of reducing violent crime especially if it is 

gun-related. Applicants who chose “Homicide” or “Gun Violence” as a problem area in their 2016 CHP 

application received additional consideration for CHP funding. Moreover, recipients that chose either of 

these specific community policing problem areas will not be allowed to change the problem area postaward. In FY 2016, 24 funded agencies selected either “Homicide” or “Gun Violence” as their 

jurisdiction’s problem area, committing to hire 225 officers to address these problems.
School Resource Officers

Applicants who requested officer positions in order to deploy school resource officers (SROs) were 

required to choose the “School Based Policing through School Resource Officers” community policing 

problem area in their 2016 CHP application and likewise received additional consideration for FY 2016 

CHP funding. Agencies requesting multiple officer positions in order to deploy school resource officers 

must deploy all their funded officer positions as school resource officers.

CHP recipients that use CHP funding to deploy SROs must submit a Memorandum of Understanding 

between the CHP recipients and the school partner. Additionally, all COPS-funded SRO(s) are required to 

complete a National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO) basic training course no later than 

nine months after the date shown on the award congratulatory letter. The COPS Office will pay the 

training fee directly to NASRO and pay allowable travel costs (airfare, hotel, and per diem) up to $1,000 

per COPS Office-funded SRO. More information can be found on the SRO Training Fact Sheet that is 

posted on the website. In FY 2016, 34 agencies received funding for a total of 59 SRO positions.

Non-problem area factors

Additional consideration was given to applicants that had experienced an unanticipated catastrophic 

event, as well as to those applicants with a neighborhood or other geographic area designated as a 

Promise Zone as part of the President’s Promise Zone Initiative. Ultimately, these non-problem area 

factors contributed to the selection of ten recipients for 54 officers. Additional consideration was also 

given to applicants in thirty states with certain anti-human trafficking laws that treat minors engaged in 

commercial sex as victims (referred to as “safe harbor” laws) or permit individuals to vacate arrest or 

prosecution records for non-violent offenses as a result of being trafficked. Additionally, as the COPS 

Office supports the Attorney General’s commitment to hiring military veterans whenever possible, 

applicants who committed to hiring or rehiring at least one military veteran under CHP received 

additional consideration for FY 2016 CHP funding. A military veteran hire must have served on active 

duty for a period of at least 180 consecutive days, any part of which occurred on or after September 11, 

2001. In FY 2016, 148 agencies received funding with a commitment to hire or rehire at least one 

military veteran using CHP funding.

The COPS Office developed an application to meet the 

requirements of the law

The COPS Office developed an application for CHP funds that met the requirements of the statute and 

mission of the COPS Office to increase the ability of law enforcement to implement community policing 

strategies within the three primary elements of community policing: 1) problem solving, 2) partnerships, 

and 3) organizational transformation.
The COPS Office balanced scoring indicators

To measure and compare the necessary scoring indicators, the COPS Office consulted with experts in the 

fields of policing, criminology, and public finance to develop appropriate application questions. 

Applicants were asked to submit information on such indicators as the following:

• Reported crime for the previous three years

• Current commitment to community policing

• Planned community policing activities

• Changes in budget for law enforcement agencies 

• Poverty and unemployment rates

In asking a variety of fiscal health questions, the COPS Office focused on getting as complete a view as 

possible of the fiscal need of applicants through objective and verifiable indicators that all agencies, 

from rural communities to large cities, could accurately report.

The community policing philosophy engages in a proactive and systematic examination of identified 

problems that can be countered with effective responses. Applicants were asked to identify the specific 

community problem they wished to address with COPS Office funding.

Community policing relies heavily on partnerships and relationships between law enforcement and the 

community it serves. A number of questions were designed to examine an agency’s formation of 

partnerships such as working with other public agencies, private organizations, or participation in 

regional law enforcement partnerships. Agencies were asked to identify the number and types of 

partnerships they intended to initiate or enhance in order to address their identified problem.

The COPS Office checked and double-checked, 

verifying the data applicants provided

The application system contains numerous built-in logic checks to help prevent the submission of 

erroneous data. In addition, once the applications were submitted, specialists in the COPS Office 

immediately reviewed the data contained therein. The COPS Office reviewed more than 375 data points 

within each application. In some cases, the COPS Office contacted applicant agencies to verify 

information provided in their application. This data verification process, though time-consuming, was 

crucial to ensuring that all applicants were properly evaluated based on accurate and reliable economic, 

crime, and community policing data. This process included checking against available reported data such 

as the Uniform Crime Statistics reported annually to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The COPS Office developed a uniform system of 

evaluating the information that applicants submitted

Selection methodology

The COPS Office focused on balancing the applicant’s need for federal assistance (as measured by 

economic and fiscal health questions) with crime rates and the applicant’s current commitment to 

community policing and their proposed community policing strategy. For FY 2016, an applicant’s 

commitment to community policing and the strength of their overall community policing strategy were 

the basis for initial scoring. A minimum score was established for the community policing portion of the 

application. Thirty-eight agencies that did not meet the score were removed from further consideration.

For the remaining applicants, fiscal need constituted 20 percent, crime 30 percent, and community 

policing 50 percent of the overall score. In addition, models similar to those used in FY 2011–2015 were 

used to determine the weight of the questions within each broad category. For example, within the 20 

percent of the score allocated to the need for federal assistance, applicants were ranked on measures of 

recent economic conditions as well as those of systemic socioeconomic health. COPS Office staff 

followed up with applicants and reviewed publicly available data to ensure that the information was as 

error-free as possible before completing the ranking protocol.

Because of the high demand and limited funding available, only 184 of the 1,181 CHP requests were 

ultimately funded, which is only about 15.6% of the total number of agencies that submitted 

applications.

In addition, two long-standing statutory requirements designed to ensure national distribution of COPS 

Office funding had an impact on which applications were ultimately funded. First, the COPS Office must 

distribute half of all hiring funds to agencies serving populations of more than 150,000 and half to those 

of fewer than 150,000. Second, by law the COPS Office must ensure that at least one-half of one percent 

of hiring funds ($555,780 for FY 2016) is allocated to each state or territory with eligible applicants. 

Although this ultimately means that sometimes a lower scoring applicant in one state receives funding 

ahead of a higher scoring applicant in another, this requirement helps ensure that smaller states and 

territories are not excluded from funding.

Capping methodology

All agencies’ requests were capped at no more than 5 percent of their actual sworn force strength as 

reported on the date of application. Agencies with a service population of 1 million or more were 

eligible to apply for up to 25 officer positions while agencies with a service population less than 1 million 

were eligible to apply for up to 15 officer positions. The request of any agency with a sworn force 

strength less than or equal to 20 was capped at one officer.